CONSTANCE HALL: "I don't know if my marriage will survive this virus."

I don’t know if my marriage is strong enough to survive this virus.

If I get told I’m panicking because I’m simply preparing to feed and care for a house full of humans when the food is unavailable I’ll scream.

Mia Freedman’s thoughts on coronavirus. Post continues below.

Today I was told that no chemists in town have Ventolin. The woman who works at the chemist snuck me an emergency one when she found out how often I’m using mine.

If I didn’t get a Ventolin I’d be in hospital for sure.

It’s not the virus I’m worried about, it’s everything that’s falling down around it.

The interesting thing about this virus is that it’s not the kids I’m worried about, it’s not my husband or any of the other people we are used to putting in front of ourselves. This time it’s me.

I get asthma, I was hospitalised a lot as a kid but I’ve always responded well to medicine and I haven’t had a serious attack since I was 20 and it’s never been something I worry about. I do, however, rely on medication.

The family isn’t used to me being worried about me. It feels weird to them.

But what happens if I go down? The only person who would drop everything to help me is my mum and I can’t risk her.

Take the two women out of our close family and we are f*cked.

Maybe this is a nice wake up call to the rest of the family. Mums are not indestructible, we are not put on this world to serve our families.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by constanceandtribe (@mrsconstancehall) on Jan 29, 2020 at 7:38pm PST

There’s evidence that in ancient cultures, women evolved to watch for danger from any direction as we cared for our young. Men, the theory goes, developed a single focus which helped them hunt their prey for extended periods of time without distraction.

I see it with my boys – zoning out to the world while they do something with their “concentration tongue” poking out.

I feel like if one more man tells me I’m neurotic or anxious or stressing out over nothing, when really all I’m doing is looking out for danger, I’ll lose it.

Maybe instead of accusing me of unnecessary panicking, my husband could thank me and my sophisticated brain for keeping his children safe and prepared.

Feature image: Instagram/@mrsconstancehall

This post originally appeared on Constance Hall’s Facebook and has been republished with full permission. For more from Constance Hall, you can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, or her website. You can buy her book, Still A Queen, here.